Kyoto University's Tokyo Office hosted the fourth installment of its 20th lecture series, "Investigating 'Communication'", organized as part of its Tokyo de Manabu Kyoto no Chi ("Ingesting Kyoto University's Knowledge -- in Tokyo ") program.
Entitled "Features, Origin, and Evolution of Human Language", the fourth lecture on 'communication' was delivered by Professor Koji Fujita of the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies.
Professor Fujita began the lecture by pointing out that "language" is specific to human beings and is different from the communication capacity that various kinds of animals demonstrate. He also presented a theory that argues that human language has evolved for the sake of humans' "thinking". After describing the structure of language, he introduced the concept of "Merge", a basic capacity to build up the complex structure of language, by which humans combine two objects to form one new set. He then explored "Merge" along with the origin and evolution of human language, and argued that the capacity of "Merge" should be involved not only in linguistic faculty, but also in the deep root of human intellectual activities. Communication between people, too, has a function to combine different ideas, he argued, and suggested that human beings must be a species that has survived successfully thanks to the ability to combine multiple concepts.
Professor Fujita delivering his lecture
The venue packed with audience
